Tulips are spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Depending on the species,tulip plants can grow as short as 4 inches (10 cm) or as high as 28 inches (71cm). The tulip’s large flowers usually bloom on scapes or sub-scapose stems that lack bracts. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a fewspecies bear multiple flowers on their scapes (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica). Theshowy, generally cup or star-shaped tulip flower has three petals and three sepals, which are often termed tepals because they are nearly identical. Thesesix tepals are often marked on the interior surface near the bases with darkercolorings. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colors, except pure blue(several tulips with “blue” in the name have a faint violet hue)
A.
Long before anyone ever heard of Qualcomm, CMGI, Cisco Systems, or the otherhigh-tech stocks that have soared during the current bull market, there wasSemper Augustus. Both more prosaic and more sublime than any stock or bond, itwas a tulip of extraordinary beauty, its midnight-blue petals topped by a bandof pure white and accented with crimson flares. To denizens of 17th centuryHolland, little was as desirable.
B.
Around 1624, the Amsterdam man who owned the only dozen specimens was offered 3,000guilders for one bulb. While there’s no accurate way to render that in today’sgreenbacks, the sum was roughly equal to the annual income of a wealthymerchant. (A few years later, Rembrandt received about half that amount forpainting The Night Watch.) Yet the bulb’s owner, whose name is now lost tohistory, nixed the offer.
C.
Who wascrazier, the tulip lover who refused to sell for a small fortune or the one whowas willing to splurge. That’s a question that springs to mind after readingTulip mania: The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the ExtraordinaryPassions It Aroused by British journalist Mike Dash. In recent years, asinvestors have intentionally forgotten everything they learned in Investing 101in order to load up on unproved, unprofitable dot- com issues, tulip mania hasbeen invoked frequently. In this concise, artfully written account, Dash tellsthe real history behind the buzzword and in doing so, offers a cautionary talefor our times.
D.
The Dutch were not the first to go gaga over the tulip. Long before the first tulipbloomed in Europe-in Bavaria, it turns out, in 1559-the flower had enchantedthe Persians and bewitched the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. It was in Holland,however, that the passion for tulips found its most fertile ground, for reasonsthat had little to do with horticulture.
E.
Holland in the early 17th century was embarking on its Golden Age. Resources that hadjust a few years earlier gone to ward fighting for independence from Spain nowflowed into commerce. Amsterdam merchants were at the center of the lucrativeEast Indies trade, where a single voyage could yield profits of 400%. Theydisplayed their success by erecting grand estates surrounded by flower gardens.The Dutch population seemed tom by two contradictory impulses: a horror ofliving beyond one’s means and the love of a long shot.
F.
Enter the tulip. “It is impossible tocomprehend the tulip mania without understanding just how different tulips werefrom every other flower known to horticulturists in the 17th century,” saysDash. “The colors they exhibited were more intense and more concentrated thanthose of ordinary plants.” Despite the outlandish prices commanded by rarebulbs, ordinary tulips were sold by the pound. Around 1630, however, a new typeof tulip fancier appeared, lured by tales of fat profits. These “florists,” orprofessional tulip traders, sought out flower lovers and speculators alike. Butif the supply of tulip buyers grew quickly, the supply of bulbs did not. Thetulip was a conspirator in the supply squeeze: It takes seven years to grow onefrom seed. And while bulbs can produce two or three clones, or “offsets,”annually, the mother bulb only lasts a few years.
G.
Bulbprices rose steadily throughout the 1630s, as ever more speculators into themarket. Weavers and farmers mortgaged whatever they could to raise cash tobegin trading. In 1633, a farmhouse in Hoorn changed hands for three rarebulbs. By 1636 any tulip-even bulbs recently considered garbage-could be soldoff, often for hundreds of guilders. A futures market for bulbs existed, andtulip traders could be found conducting their business in hundreds of Dutchtaverns. Tulip mania reached its peak during the winter of 1636-37, when somebulbs were changing hands ten times in a day. The zenith came early thatwinter, at an auction to benefit seven orphans whose only asset was 70 finetulips left by then father. One, a rare Violetten Admirael van Enkhuizen bulbthat was about to split in two, sold for 5,200 guilders, the all-time record.All told, the flowers brought in nearly 53,000 guilders.
H.
Soon after, the tulip market crashed utterly, spectacularly. It began in Haarlem, ata routine bulb auction when, for the first time, the greater fool refused toshow up and pay. Within days, the panic had spread across the country. Despitethe efforts of traders to prop up demand, the market for tulips evaporated.Flowers that had commanded 5,000 guilders a few weeks before now fetchedone-hundredth that amount. Tulip mania is not without flaws. Dash dwells toolong on the tulip’s migration from Asia to Holland. But he does a service withthis illuminating, accessible account of incredible financial folly.
I.
Tulipmania differed in one crucial aspect from the dot-com craze that grips ourattention today: Even at its height, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, well-established in 1630, wouldn’t touch tulips. “The speculation in tulip bulbsalways existed at the margins of Dutch economic life,” Dash writes. After themarket crashed, a compromise was brokered that let most traders settle thendebts for a fraction of then liability. The overall fallout on the Dutcheconomy was negligible. Will we say the same when Wall Street’s currentobsession finally runs its course?
SECTION2: QUESTIONS 14-27
Questions14-18
The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-I.
Which paragraphcontains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-I, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
14 ABCDEFGHIDifference between bubble burst impacts by tulip and by high-tech shares
15 ABCDEFGHISpread of tulip before 17th century
16 ABCDEFGHIIndication of money offered for rare bulb in 17th century
17 ABCDEFGHITulip was treated as money in Holland
18 ABCDEFGHIComparison made between tulip and other plants
Questions19-23
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
Inboxes 19-23 on your answer sheet, write:
TRUE ifthe statement agrees with the information
FALSE if thestatement contradicts the information
NOTGIVEN If there is no information on this
19 TRUEFALSENOTGIVEN In 1624, all the tulip collection belonged to a man in Amsterdam.
20 TRUEFALSENOTGIVEN Tulip was first planted in Holland according to this passage.
21 TRUEFALSENOTGIVEN Popularity of Tulip in Holland was much higher than any other countriesin 17th century.
22 TRUEFALSENOTGIVEN Holland was the most wealthy country in the world in 17th century.
23 TRUEFALSENOTGIVEN From 1630, Amsterdam Stock Exchange started to regulate Tulips exchangemarket.
Questions24-27
Summary
Completethe following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using NO MORETHAN TWO WORD from the Reading Passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 24-27 on your answer sheet.
Dutch concentrated on gaining independence by 24 against Spain in the early17th century; consequently spare resources entered the area of 25 .Prosperous traders demonstrated their status by building great 26 andwith gardens in surroundings. Attracted by the success of profit on tulip,traders kept looking for 27 and speculator for sale.
A
The recognition of the wealth and diversity of England’s coastalarchaeology has been one of the most important developments of recent years.Some elements of this enormous resource have long been known. The so-called‘submerged forests’ off the coasts of England, sometimes with clear evidence ofhuman activity, had attracted the interest of antiquarians since at least theeighteenth century, but serious and systematic attention has been given to thearchaeological potential of the coast only since the early 1980s.
B
It is possible to trace a variety of causes for this concentration ofeffort and interest. In the 1980s and 1990s, scientific researches into climatechange and its environmental impact spilled over into a much broader publicdebate as awareness of these issues grew; the prospect of rising sea levelsover the next century, and their impact on current coastal environments, havebeen a particular focus for concern. At the same time archaeologists werebeginning to recognise that the destruction caused by natural processes ofcoastal erosion and by human activity was having an increasing impact on thearchaeological resource of the coast.
C
The dominant process affecting the physical form of England in thepost-glacial period has been the rise in the altitude of sea level relative tothe land, as the glaciers melted and the landmass read-justed. The encroachmentof the sea, the loss of huge areas of land now under the North Sea and theEnglish Channel, and especially the loss of the land bridge between England andFrance which finally made Britain an island, must have been immenselysignificant factors in the lives of our pre-historic ancestors. Yet the way inwhich prehistoric communities adjusted to these environmental changes hasseldom been a major theme in discussions of the period. One factor contributingto this has been that, although the rise in relative sea level is comparativelywell documented, we know little about the constant reconfiguration of thecoastline. This was affected by many processes, mostly quite localised, whichhave not yet been adequately researched. The detailed reconstruction ofcoastline histories and the changing environments available for human use willbe an important theme for future research.
D
So great has been the rise in sea level and the consequent regression ofthe coast that much of the archaeological evidence now exposed in the coastalzone, whether being eroded or exposed as a buried land surface, is derived fromwhat was originally terrestrial occupation. Its current location in the coastalzone is the product of later unrelated processes, and it can tell us littleabout past adaptation to the sea. Estimates of its significance will need to bemade in the context of other related evidence from dry land sites. Nevertheless,its physical environment means that preserva-tion is often excellent, forexample in the case of the Neolithic structure excavated at the Stumble inEssex.
E
In some cases these buried land surfaces do contain evidence for humanexploitation of what was a coastal environment, and elsewhere along the moderncoast there is similar evidence. Where the evidence does relate to past humanexploitation of the resources and the opportunities offered by the sea and thecoast, it is both diverse and as yet little understood. We are not yet in aposition to make even preliminary estimates of answers to such fundamentalquestions as the extent to which the sea and the coast affected human life inthe past, what percentage of the population at any time lived within reach ofthe sea, or whether human settlements in coastal environments showed adis-tinct character from those inland.
F
The most striking evidence for use of the sea is in the form of boats, yetwe still have much to learn about their production and use. Most of the knownwrecks around our coast are not unexpectedly of post-medieval date, and offeran unparalleled opportunity for research which has as yet been little used. Theprehistoric sewn-plank boats such as those from the Humber estuary and Doverall seem to belong to the second millennium BC; after this there is a gap inthe record of a millennium, which cannot yet be explained, before boatsreappeared, but built using a very different technology. Boatbuilding must havebeen an extremely important activity around much of our coast, yet we knowalmost nothing about it. Boats were some of the most complex artefacts producedby pre-modern societies, and further researches on their production and usemake an important contribu-tion to our understanding of past attitudes totechnology and technological change.
G
Boats needed landing places, yet here again our knowledge is very patchy.In many cases the natural shores and beaches would have sufficed, leavinglittle or no archaeological trace, but especially in later periods, many portsand harbours, as well as smaller facilities such as quays, wharves, andjetties, were built. Despite a growth of interest in the waterfront archaeologyof some of our more important Roman and medieval towns, very little attentionhas been paid to the multitude of smaller landing places. Redevelopment ofharbour sites and other development and natural pres-sures along the coast aresubjecting these important locations to unprecedented threats, yet few surveysof such sites have been undertaken.
H
One of the most important revelations of recent researches has been theextent of industrial activi-ties along the coast. Fishing and salt productionare among the better documented activities, but even here our knowledge ispatchy. Many forms of fishing will leave little archaeological trace, and oneof the surprises of recent surveys has been the extent of past investment infacilities for procuring fish and shellfish. Elaborate wooden fish weirs, oftenof considerable extent and respon-sive to aerial photography in shallow water,have been identified in areas such as Essex and the Severn estuary. The productionof salt, especially in the late Iron Age and early Roman periods, has beenrecognised for some time, especially in the Thames estuary and around theSolent and Poole Harbour, but the reasons for the decline of that industry andthe nature of later coastal salt working are much less well understood. Otherindustries were also located along the coast, either because the raw materialsoutcropped there or for ease of working and transport: mineral resources suchas sand, gravel, stone, coal, ironstone, and alum were all exploited. Theseindustries are poorly documented, but their remains are sometimes extensive andstriking.
I
Some appreciation of the variety and importance of the archaeologicalremains preserved in the coastal zone, albeit only in preliminary form, canthus be gained from recent work, but the com-plexity of the problem of managingthat resource is also being realised. The problem arises not only from thescale and variety of the archaeological remains, but also from two other sources:the very varied natural and human threats to the resource, and the complex webof organisations with authority over, or interests in, the coastal zone. Humanthreats include the redevelopment of his-toric towns and old dockland areas,and the increased importance of the coast for the leisure and tourismindustries, resulting in pressure for the increased provision of facilitiessuch as marinas. The larger size of ferries has also caused an increase in thedamage caused by their wash to fragile deposits in the intertidal zone. Themost significant natural threat is the predicted rise in sea level over thenext century, especially in the south and east of England. Its impact onarchaeology is not easy to predict, and though it is likely to be highly localised,it will be at a scale much larger than that of most archaeological sites. Thusprotecting one site may simply result in transposing the threat to a pointfurther along the coast. The management of the archaeological remains will haveto be considered in a much longer time scale and a much wider geographicalscale than is common in the case of dry land sites, and this will pose aserious challenge for archaeologists.
Questions 14 – 16
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 14-16 on your answer sheet.
14.What has caused public interest in coastal archaeology in recent years?
A. The rapid development of England’s coastal archaeology
B. The rising awareness of climate change
C. The discovery of an underwater forest
D. The systematic research conducted on coastal archaeologicalfindings
15.What does the passage say about the evidence of boats?
A. There’s enough knowledge of the boatbuilding technology of thepre-historic people.
B. Many of the boats discovered were found in harbours.
C. The use of boats had not been recorded for a thousand years.
D. Boats were first used for fishing.
16.What can be discovered from the air?
A. Salt minesB Roman townsC HarboursD Fisheries
Questions 17 – 23
Do the following statements agree with the information given in ReadingPassage 2?
In boxes 17-23 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
17.England lost much of its land after the Ice Age due to the rising sealevel.
18.The coastline of England has changed periodically.
19.Coastal archaeological evidence may be well-protected by sea water.
20.The design of boats used by pre-modern people was very simple.
21.Similar boats were also discovered in many other European countries.
22.There are few documents relating to mineral exploitation.
23.Large passenger boats are causing increasing damage to the seashore.
Questions 24 – 26
Choose THREE letters, A-G.
Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.
24-26.Which THREE of the following statements are mentioned in the passage?
A. How coastal archaeology was originally discovered.
B .It is difficult to understand how many people lived close to thesea.
C. How much the prehistoric communities understand the climate change.
D. Our knowledge of boat evidence is limited.
E. Some fishing grounds were converted to ports.
F.Human development threatens the archaeological remains.
G. Coastal archaeology will become more important in the futur
答案
1. B
2. C
3. D
4. TRUE
5. FALSE
6. TRUE
7. FALSE
8. NOT GIVEN
9. TRUE
10. TRUE
11. B
12. D
13. F
